Atmospheric Pollution and Microecology of Respiratory Tract

This chapter elaborates the source and ingredients of atmospheric pollutants, the microecology of respiratory tract in animals and humans and the effect of atmospheric pollution on it and thus clarifies the relationship between air pollution and microecology of the respiratory tract based on the experiments

Distributed Semi-Supervised Sparse Statistical Inference

This paper is devoted to studying the semi-supervised sparse statistical inference in a distributed setup. An efficient multi-round distributed debiased estimator, which integrates both labeled and unlabelled data, is developed. We will show that the additional unlabeled data helps to improve the statistical rate of each round of iteration. Our approach offers tailored debiasing methods for $M$-estimation and generalized linear model according to the specific form of the loss function. Our method also applies to a non-smooth loss like absolute deviation loss. Furthermore, our algorithm is computationally efficient since it requires only one estimation of a high-dimensional inverse covariance matrix. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by presenting simulation studies and real data applications that highlight the benefits of incorporating unlabeled data.Comment: 41 pages, 4 figure

Investigation of HIV-1 Gag binding with RNAs and Lipids using Atomic Force Microscopy

Atomic Force Microscopy was utilized to study the morphology of Gag, {\Psi}RNA, and their binding complexes with lipids in a solution environment with 0.1{\AA} vertical and 1nm lateral resolution. TARpolyA RNA was used as a RNA control. The lipid used was phospha-tidylinositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2). The morphology of specific complexes Gag-{\Psi}RNA, Gag-TARpolyA RNA, Gag-PI(4,5)P2 and PI(4,5)P2-{\Psi}RNA-Gag were studied. They were imaged on either positively or negatively charged mica substrates depending on the net charges carried. Gag and its complexes consist of monomers, dimers and tetramers, which was confirmed by gel electrophoresis. The addition of specific {\Psi}RNA to Gag is found to increase Gag multimerization. Non-specific TARpolyA RNA was found not to lead to an increase in Gag multimerization. The addition PI(4,5)P2 to Gag increases Gag multimerization, but to a lesser extent than {\Psi}RNA. When both {\Psi}RNA and PI(4,5)P2 are present Gag undergoes comformational changes and an even higher degree of multimerization

Optimization of Layer Selection with Unreliable RI in LTE Systems

This paper investigates the optimization of transmission spatial layer selection with unreliable rank indicator (RI) in downlink LTE systems. Taking the block error rate (BLER) into consideration, we propose an accurate throughput calculation (ATC) algorithm at user equipment (UE) side as well as at evolved NodeB (eNB) side. On the basis of ATC algorithm, we propose an accurate RI selection algorithm to periodically choose the preferred number of transmission spatial layers at UE side. Further based on acknowledgement (ACK)/ negative acknowledgement (NACK) history, channel quality indicator (CQI) is adjusted at eNB side to achieve the throughput optimal target BLER. By substituting the derived BLER into ATC algorithm, the optimal number of transmitted spatial layers in current downlink channel is derived at eNB side. Simulation results show that both the proposed CQI adjustment scheme for spatial layer selection and RI selection algorithm yield up significant throughput improvement for different evaluation scenarios in LTE systems

Assessing Junior Faculty Research Productivity in the IS Field: Recommendations for Promotion and Tenure Standards for Asian Schools

We gathered information about junior faculty research productivity in the information systems (IS) field in North America and in a set of top Asian schools. Our work complements prior studies on IS faculty research productivity in several ways. First, we focused on junior faculty research productivity, which refers to publication records of current tenure-track assistant professors. To provide statistics with a greater coverage of IS researchers, we also collected information about the pre-tenure publication records of associate professors. Second, we covered IS researchers who obtained their doctoral degrees in or after the year 2000 and counted their publications until 2013 to provide the most up-to-date information about junior faculty research productivity. Third, we collected information about IS researchers’ publications in leading IS journals (based on the AIS Senior Scholar basket of journals) and in elite broader business journals (based on the Financial Times list and UT Dallas list). Finally, examining junior faculty research productivity in the IS field in Asian schools and in North America enabled us to provide recommendations for promotion and tenure standards for Asian schools in light of the research productivity and tenure standards in North America

Fluid Retention Caused by Rosiglitazone Is Related to Increases in AQP2 and α

Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) is a ligand-activated transcription factor of the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily. The decreased phosphorylation of PPARγ due to rosiglitazone (ROS) is the main reason for the increased insulin sensitivity caused by this antidiabetic drug. However, there is no clear evidence whether the nuclear translocation of p-PPARγ stimulated by ROS is related to fluid retention. It is also unclear whether the translocation of p-PPARγ is associated with the change of aquaporin-2 (AQP2) and epithelial sodium channel α subunit (αENaC) in membranes, cytoplasm, and nucleus. Our experiments indicate that ROS significantly downregulates nuclear p-PPARγ and increases membrane AQP2 and αENaC; however, SR1664 (a nonagonist PPARγ ligand) reduces p-PPARγ and has no effect on AQP2 and αENaC. Therefore, we conclude that in vitro the fluid retention caused by ROS is associated with the increases in membrane αENaC and AQP2 but has little relevance to the phosphorylation of PPARγ

Surface stress evolution and cracks prevention of ingots during the upsetting process

In this research, surface axial stress and propagation of surface transverse cracks on large ingots during hot forging process was studied using finite element modeling. The simulation results show that surface axial stress changes from compressive to tensile during the upsetting process. Large ingots which need to be upset and stretched several times are easy to form cracks at anvil overlapping part during stretching process. These surface transverse cracks are crack source and may rapidly propagate under surface axial tensile stress during the upsetting process. The effect of material, temperature, height-diameter ratio of billet, deformation speed, and friction coefficient between anvil and billet on the changing of surface axial stress was investigated. The results show that critical transformation point of surface axial stress from compressive to tensile has an obvious relationship with drum shape of the billet. In order to eliminate the surface axial tensile stress and prevent propagation of surface transverse cracks, a slim waist forging process was proposed based on the surface stress analysis. A quantitative designing method of slim waist billet was established for guiding industrial production